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Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear... humiliation... misery and terror... A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better stay in it.

— Josephine Baker

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More quotes by Josephine Baker

I cannot see that I did anything extraordinary to merit this honor. Everything was just as it had to be."

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

Josephine (1977)

I have stage contracts for the next 18 months, and I shall go on with them whatever he says.

First, I want to do what I can to help win the war and thus perform whatever duty I can for my native land. Second, I want to help those of my own race. I am doing all I can to help win the war effort and to make people generally more appreciative and kinder to my race.

France made me what I am. I will be grateful forever. The people of Paris have given me everything. They have given me their hearts, and I have given them mine. I am ready, captain, to give them my life. You can use me as you wish.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Josephine Baker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.